NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — A large new study suggests vitamin E may help prevent death from cancer and heart disease in middle-aged men who smoke, contradicting the findings of some previous studies on the subject. In a study of 29,092 Finnish men in their 50s and 60s who were smokers, those with the highest concentrations of the vitamin E in their blood at the study’s outset were the least likely to die during the follow-up period, which lasted up to 19 years, Dr. Margaret E. Wright of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and colleagues report.There are a number of mechanisms by which vitamin E, also known as alpha-tocopherol, might promote health, Wright and her team note in the current issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. For example, vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant, while it also boosts immune system function and prevents tumour blood vessel growth. But studies investigating blood levels of vitamin E and mortality, as well as the effects of taking supplements of the vitamin, have had conflicting results. In the current study, Wright and her colleagues compared men’s levels of alpha tocopherol at the beginning of the study, before they had begun taking the supplements, with their mortality over the course of the study’s follow-up period.